


antelucan

by Oparu (USSJellyfish)



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Gen, Post-Episode: s03e06, based on wild speculation after episode 3x06, some background Michael Burnham/Book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:21:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27692698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/USSJellyfish/pseuds/Oparu
Summary: No matter what Michael says, vulnerability is, and should be a death sentence. One can't walk around with weakness, especially not when one used to be the Emperor of the known universe.Except now she's in the unknown universe and teh even more unknown future and Michael wants her trust, which ended so badly last time.She shouldn't let her help, but Michael makes it so difficult.
Relationships: Michael Burnham & Mirror Philippa Georgiou
Comments: 10
Kudos: 40





	antelucan

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to play with connection between Michael and Philippa and the ideas of vulnerability and trust brought up in the episode. It probably won't match canon, but I'm in it for the emotions. 
> 
> Many thanks to HerefortheDrama, for all her help.

Michael stands in the doorway, bag over her shoulder, smiling a little. Anyone else she'd try to make as uncomfortable as possible so they'd leave, but it won't work on her. 

Philippa steps back, allowing her in. "Did you bring wine?"

"It's a medical tricorder."

Sighing and throwing her hair over her shoulder, Philippa returns to her seat. "Go back to your quarters, Michael."

The door shuts hisses behind her and Michael shakes her head. "I don't think I can." 

"You can use your fancy new multitool commbadge and beam out if you like." Philippa crosses her legs, enthroning herself on the far too comfortable Starfleet chair. "Or go to Book's quarters, or his ship. Chase the cat out of his bed and have a good time."

"This is where I need to be." Michael opens the bag and takes out a medical tricorder, a cortical monitor and some tiny implements that Philippa doesn't recognize. New things. They're probably all horribly invasive and more unpleasant than trying to be nice at Saru's next dinner party. "We can replicate wine if that'll help."

"It won't be real."

"We should be sober for this."

Philippa rolls her eyes. "We're not doing anything, so it doesn't matter. I can get drunk if that'll make you leave me alone."

"I didn't even explain yet."

Nothing she's going to do will make Michael leave at this point. Maybe she should just submit and get it over with because the only other option is hitting her in the face and that has no appeal tonight. She's tried. "You don't have to explain anything, it's obvious that even though I've asked you not to, you're going to try to help me." 

"I'm worried."

She lets her tone sharpen, but she can't get Michael to flinch anymore. "Don't you think I am?"

"Of course--"

"Then respect my wishes and go."

"I can't do that."

Leaving her sofa, Philippa crosses to the replicator and orders tea for both of them. Anything stronger will be fake and she's just not in the mood for fake, soft, sweet Starfleet whisky right now. Setting a cup in front of Michael, she glares at the equipment on the table. Maybe she should spill her tea on it.

Michael accepts the cup and smiles over it. 

"Now what?"

Lifting the cup, Michael beams. "You served me."

"Shut up."

"You gave me tea, that's almost nice, Philippa."

"I'm trying to distract you from whatever stupid, do gooder plan you have to dissect my brain. You are not a medic."

"I would happily have one here if you would let me."

"Doctors--"

"Are good, kind people who want to help you." 

"This universe is a joke in mine."

"I know." Michael sets down her tea, then reaches across the table and touches her hand. "Let me try. It's just a scan, and we can talk. It won't hurt."

"I'd rather it did."

"Pain makes sense, doesn't it?"

"Pain is foreplay. This is uncontrollable, unfamiliar." She drums her fingers on her cup, staring past Michael at the wall. "Unacceptable."

"Let me take some readings, get a baseline, maybe we can figure it out."

Tilting her head, she raises her eyebrows. "You're a scientist and I'm an engineer., what are we going to do, build a model?"

"You can't tell me you haven't studied the body. Even if it's just to find out the best ways to cause pain?"

"Other people studied it for me."

Michael raises her eyebrows, which means she's said something. "And you trusted them without doing your own research?"

"Of course not."

"Well then, we can figure this out."

She hates Michael. This one is just as smug as her own, and she knows her. So she's trapped, because Micahel will just pick and pick at this until she gets somewhere. Like a flesh-eating insect. 

"I have no idea what this is, and you're right, I have tortured other beings by taking their minds apart, and this is unknown to me. I wanted to cause pain, not make someone freeze."

"Well good, we know it's not another Terran trying to take over the Empire."

"Very funny."

Michael smiles, her eyes soft and worried. Her Michael worried too, but never so openly. Opening the tricorder, she starts to collect her data. 

It's probably as meaningless as Philippa's own scans, but she's not going to admit that she's tried to heal herself, or tried to figure out what's happening. Even let a tricorder run for more than a day to collect as much data as possible. Michael probably already knows that she did her own scans, but they'll dance around it, because Michael will let her protect her feelings. 

The tricorder beeps, but it doesn't scream, or sound any alarms, so she's not dying tonight.

"And?"

"You're stressed: cortisol and norepinephrine are elevated."

"I could have told you that."

"You've had a lot of head injuries."

Philippa chuckles. "You should see my scars."

"Other than that...your very hard head has mildly elevated activity in the hippocampus and amygdala, abnormal but not unusually so." She lets the tricorder rest and her eyes are too soft and too large. Her concern shines naked on her face and it's just not acceptable that Michael cares for her so openly. 

"Or you can't detect what's happening."

"Maybe I have detected it but I can't understand it, so you should let me ask Dr. Culber for help."

Finishing her tea, Philippa stares into the empty cup. "Is he as smart as he is handsome?"

"Yes, and much better at reading a brain scan. I have to be missing something. The amygdala governs emotions and the hippocampus handles memory, if both of those are elevated--"

"That's because of stress-"

"You're stressed now?"

She's not, not by Michael anyway, but she's not going to do her the pleasure of admitting it. The episodes are frightening, which she won't say aloud, but Michael knows, saving her the trouble. "But your brain chemistry could be the cause of your black outs or an effect of you hating your black outs."

Philippa stares at her hands in her lap instead of looking at Michael. "I don't black out."

"Oh?"

"I see the past. Images, memories, and no, we're not talking about them."

Michael leaves her chair and sits beside her on the sofa. Touching the back of her hand, she smiles. "We are."

She's trapped now. If she leaves the sofa she's afraid, and if she stays, Michael's close enough to hear her breath catch, feel the tension in her body. There are so many little physiological giveaways of weakness, and she'll find all of them. 

"We certainly are not. They're delusions, detritus from a life in another universe."

"These are hurting you, or being used to hurt you." 

"Who would want to hurt me here?" 

"You haven't wasted time making friends, I'm sure." 

"I've barely spoken to anyone outside of Discovery and our charming adventure on the salvage pit." 

"You were debriefed by Starfleet."

The man in glasses with the infuriating low grade holograms. "Not Starfleet."

"Oh?"

"Someone smarter." Turning her cup in her hands, she rests it on the table, staring at her reflection in the glass. "Someone who thinks like me." 

"Maybe we should start--"

There's blood on her hands. Michael's voice grows faint, and she can feel the cool, congealing blood on her hand, sticky and wet. The body lies still, and she leans over it, sobbing. Her heart races, her lungs catch, and she can't move. She's not in her throne room, she's not in this memory, but she is.

Focus on the too soft Starfleet furniture and the pleasant windows and the grey. Stay in the moment. 

Fight.

How can she fight when she can't even breathe?

Now the tricorder's screaming. At least Michael will have some of the data she wanted. 

She's screaming in her own mind. Lost in the memory and sinking deeper, even though her thoughts are wrong. Michael lies on the floor of the throne room, covered in blood. Her Michael, this Michael, maybe they're the same person. Blood coats her hands, the metal stink of it fills the air. She sobs. She's the Emperor: the exalted Mother of the Fatherland and she sobs into her daughter's blood soaked uniform like a courtesan.

"Philippa?" 

Michael can't be speaking, she's dead.

"Philippa, come back."

It's like she hasn't breathed the whole time, her chest aches, her eyes sting and her hands don 't feel like hers. They're too cold, but she's sweating. Leather sticks to her skin as if she's covered in blood. She tugs the collar of her outfit, tearing it open. She can't--

"It's all right." Michael touches her hand, then her shoulder. "You're safe."

Her brown eyes stare with too much sympathy and she'd bother to hate it if she wasn't so grateful to see life in them. 

"What did you see?"

"I need to change." 

"Philippa--"

Standing up was a mistake, and she'll never admit it, but she stumbles, and Michael's up, hands on her arm. In her empire, a weakness like that might lead to death. Micahel would have a knife. Weakness needs to be cut out. Flinching back, she has to grab the chair to steady herself and Micahel will have none of it. 

"Stop fighting. Breathe. I can get your clothes. I can help you."

"You can't help me."

"Of course I can." Micahel holds up her hands. "I don't have a weapon."

"You really should."

"Philippa, I'm going to go into the bedroom and grab your clothes. I won't touch anything."

"All the fun things are in the top drawer."

"Who have you been having fun with on Discovery?" Michael teases from the bedroom. "I didn't think you'd stoop to lower ranks."

"There are other ships here."

"Sure." Micahel returns with one of her kimonos and a tank top. "Should have known you'd have silk."

"Have you felt the sackcloth Starfleet gives you for pajamas?"

Chuckling, Michael holds out her clothes and reaches up to help peel the leather from her skin. "I won't hurt you."

"Why does all of this involve me trusting you so much?"

"Would it be easier if I just put a knife to your neck?" Michael's tone is light, but she's right. It would be easier if Michael just forced her to submit, fought her, tried to kill her. Stopped this weakness before it could fester any further. 

She lets the silence sit too long. 

"It would, wouldn't it?" 

"What would?"

"It would be easier for you if I threatened you more."

"The child of the Emperor is no one until she kills her mother, and a mother wants to see her child succeed."

"I was supposed to kill you?"

"Only after I've become weak." 

Michael's far too gentle hands ease off her leather coat, then the sweat-soaked tunic beneath. She doesn't flinch at the scars mapping a life of danger on Philippa's skin. She keeps her eyes up. "This is soaked."

"I told you the severity is increasing."

"The tricorder readings would agree with that."

"Is my brain melting out my ears?"

"Honestly? It looks like some kind of post-traumatic stress response."

Philippa makes a disgusted noise. "I don't have trauma."

"I know, I know, it's not something you acknowledge. Maybe it's some interrogation method, or some kind of test. You were Section 31, what do you think they're like here? Would they try to get into your head?"

"Intelligence agencies are all alike, no matter the century. Some are just more efficient than others."

"Did you touch anything strange? Eat or drink anything?" Michael guides the silk over her head. Pulling her hair free, she arranges it on her shoulders. Philippa stiffens, because she's too close, this is dangerous, but she forces herself to relax. Maybe Michael didn't notice. Her fingers slip cool against Philippa's neck. She may not be a mother yet, but she has that touch. Philippa's own mother was rarely this kind. 

"You think I've been poisoned?"

"Hypnotized?" Michael fusses with her hair, letting it fall on the shoulders of the kimono before she steps back. "Some kind of mind control? I have no idea, but when in doubt, it's best to rule out every possibility. You said this started a couple weeks ago. So, we find out what changed then and work from there. " 

"Says the Vulcan."

"Says a scientist." 

"Fine." She starts to sit, but the chair is a trap. It's soft confines aren't something she can surrender too, so she paces in front of her window. "What does the tricorder say?"

"It looks like some kind of seizure."

Philippa stops pacing, crossing her arms over her chest. Her Michael would start planning to kill her, and in her universe, she'd let her. They'd even start planning how to make her death earn Michael the most power. She could find peace with that, giving Michael the best start to her own Empire, but there's no peace living with weakness. Losing her mind means the sun's setting on her empire. 

Here, she has no idea what any of it means and Michael will not do her the honor of killing her. 

"When you froze, your neural activity was localized in the amygdala and hippocampus, intense and focused enough to cause mild brain damage. Which explains why you can't move. You probably can't hear or see things that are happening here because your brain's too busy with what's happening in those sectors. It's hurting you, and making you vulnerable to attack." 

"Someone on the crew is going to assassinate me for a promotion?"

"Exactly. You know Tilly's been coveting your quarters."

Despite the knot in her stomach and the growing horror seeping through her veins like ice, Philippa laughs. "Tilly?" 

"You're so mean to her."

"She can handle it."

"What?" Michael pauses, tricorder in hand. "That's why you're so harsh to her? Because she can handle it?"

"She's not some delicate child, Michael. She's a genius and highly adaptable."

Michael beams at her, lifting a finger. "You said a nice thing about Tilly."

"My brain's having an ion storm. I can't be held responsible for anything I say at the moment." 

Michael scans her again, shaking her head. "I won't tell Tilly what you actually think."

"She's a kitten."

"And you're a cat person."

Philippa rolls her eyes. "If you're done berating me, I should go to bed."

"Flashbacks wear you out?"

She's not going to admit it, but yawning in front of Michael is equally unacceptable. She will not save the words, but she glances down for a moment, which is enough for Michael to pat her shoulder. "Let the tricorder run overnight, please. I could use some more data." 

"Fine, waste your time."

"It's my time to waste. Sleep well."

What a saccharine, overly soft thing to say. In her universe, they would never be so ridiculous. Perhaps that's what makes this one safer. Michael smiles again and leaves her alone with her thoughts. 

Rolling her eyes at herself for complying with Michael's ridiculous plan, Philippa leaves the tricorder out on the table by the bed and walks into the shower. Her episode left cold sweat on her skin and even her silk sticks to it. Stepping naked into the sonic shower, she shuts her eyes, then turns out the lights. The darkness feels more like home, even though she let Section 31 change her eyes to remove her light sensitivity. Why wince her way through a too bright universe if she doesn't have to? She's not going home. 

As she runs her fingers through her hair, she finds the cool metal of the cortical monitor on the back of her neck, almost in her hairline. Sneaky Michael, placing it there while she fussed with her hair. Philippa was distracted, so she didn't feel it. 

She leaves it where it is. It's hidden by her hair and maybe Michael will find something she hasn't. Philippa can't help being proud of her for placing it against her will and without her noticing. She's rubbing off on her daughter, just a little. 

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this would be more than a one shot, but I think it's really better just as a moment, so I'll call it that. I was worried the show wouldn't go where I wanted but damn...it really really did, so this is just this. 
> 
> Thanks for your support and patience.


End file.
